In general, the charge for a delivery including a parcel, a letter and the like is determined by the outer shape (length, width and height) of the delivery. In post offices, convenience stores and the like which accept deliveries, a person manually measures the outer shape of a delivery with a ruler to determine the charge for the delivery.
A device for automatically determining the outer shape of a delivery has been proposed to avoid reliance on the manual labor (see, for example, JP-A-2000-48232). As schematically shown in FIG. 13, this outer shape determination device includes a mounting base 60 for placing a delivery 61 thereon, a camera 62 for photographing the delivery 61 from above, a shift mechanism 63 for moving the camera 62 upwardly and downwardly, a shift position detecting means 64 for detecting the vertical position of the shift mechanism 63, and a controller 65 for controlling the operations of the camera 62, the shift mechanism 63, and the shift position detecting means 64 described above.
An outer shape determination method using this outer shape determination device is as follows. First, the delivery 61 is placed on the mounting base 60. Then, image data about the delivery 61 is captured using the camera 62, and the dimensions of the upper surface of the delivery 61 are obtained. Next, the shift mechanism 63 is moved downwardly from above, and the position at which the shift mechanism 63 comes in contact with the upper surface of the delivery 61 is detected using the shift position detecting means 64, whereby the height of the delivery 61 is obtained. Then, the outer shape of the delivery 61 is determined in the controller 65 from the dimensions of the upper surface of the delivery 61 and the height of the delivery 61 thus obtained.